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YELLOW CLOVER 

A Book of Remembrance 



BY 

KATHARINE LEE BATES 

AUTHOR OF "fairy GOLD," 

"the retinue," etc. 






NEW YORK 

E. p. DUTTON bf COMPANY 

681 FIFTH AVENUE 



COPYRIGHT, 1922, , 

BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 









\ 



Printed In tlie United States of America 



AK- I h 1922 

0)CLA661341 



•^VP 



To 

KATHARINE COMAN 

'Quis destderio sit pudor aut modus 
Tam cart capitis?" 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Several of these poems, written to my Friend 
or about her while she was living, are taken 
from my first published volume of verse, 
America the B'^autiful, 191 1, now out of print. 
A few of the memorial poems have appeared 
in periodicals, — notably in The Churchman and 
The North American Review. 



PREFATORY NOTE 

Katharine Coman, to whom the follow- 
ing lyrics are addressed, was a teacher and 
writer of books on political and economic his- 
tory. A nfestern woman, bom in Newark, 
Ohio, November 23, 1857, she graduated from 
the University of Michigan in 1880, and was 
connected, for the remaining thirty-five years 
of her life, with 'W ellesley College. Coming 
as instructor in English, she went over in 1881 
to the department of history, serving as instruc- 
tor till '85, and then as professor of history 
and political economy till '99. Dean of th^ 
College the following year, she then resumed 
her teaching, holding the new chair of econom- 
ics and sociology till failing health necessitated 
her withdrawal from active service. In^ 19 13, 
hamng already suffered two critical operations, 



X PREFATORY NOTE 

she became professor emeritus, dying January 

II, 1915- 

Classroom routine was, in her case, fre- 
quently relieved by years, as well as summers, 
of travel in Europe and America, with a final 
trip to Egypt. Her earlier books zvere very 
successful school histories of England, but as 
her interest in economic subjects strengthened, 
she centered her studies in her own country, 
spending much time in the South, in Utah, and 
on the Pacific coast, whence she extended her 
journeying to Hawaii and Alaska. Her re- 
sultant book. Industrial History of the 
United States, proved so valuable a contribu- 
tion to its subject that the chair established at 
Wellesley in her honor, 1921, is designated the 
Katharine Coman Professorship of Industrial 
History. Less than a year before her death, 
she received urgent proposals from a leading 
publishing house to prepare a series of volumes 
dealing with the economic development of our 
country by local sections, — a congenial task 



PREFATORY NOTE xi 

that might well h(we Ulled -fifteen or twenty 
years. With undaunted courage she set to 
work, making pencil notes in the hours least 
taxed by pain up to within a few weeks of the 
end. 

But the hook which best expresses her vigor- 
ous and adventurous personality is her Eco- 
nomic Beginnings of the Far West : How 
We Won the Land Beyond the Mississippi 
(Macmillan, 2 vols., 851 pp.)- Although her 
studies had long been pointing toward this 
book, the author, aided by a Carnegie grant, 
devoted four years to its direct preparation, fol- 
lowing the old westward trails and working, 
as far as possible, on the ground with original 
materials. On such scholarly foundation she 
built a picturesque narrative of vivid human 
interest, her epic of the pioneers. 



CONTENTS 

PACK 

Yellow Clover i 

"She Is the Grace of All that Are" . . 9 

A Mountain Soul 12 

Love Planted a Rose 14 

Measures 14 

When It Befortunes Us 15 

The Victory 16 

Madonna 17 

Our Driftwood Fire 18 

The Changing Road 18 

The Day is Waning 20 

Felices 22 

Lying too Faint to Look 23 

The Tryst 23 

At Holmenkollen 24 

Good Friday in Paris 28 

xiii 



xiv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

How Oft with Thee 29 

Our Christmas Truce 30 

Holy Spirit Gone Free 33 

Starry Runaway 36 

The God of Silence 36 

Cremation 37 

n the Celestial Body . 37 

If You Could Come 39 

Why Wander More ? 40 

Your Own Plants Bloom Again ... 40 

In Cedar Hill Cemetery 41 

The Broken-Hearted 43 

Firewood 46 

Life 47 

Shut Out 48 

The Path of Sorrow 49 

Work 49 

A Rose-White Cloud 49 

Failure on Failure 50 

A Frosted Bush in the Sun 50 

Pointed Firs 51 



CONTENTS XV 

PAGE 

Birds and Books 52 

Laughter 52 

Yesterday's Grief 53 

Westering Heart 55 

To One Who Waits 60 

The Gates of Death 62 

Looking on the Milky Way 6^ 

Immortality 64 

The Luxury of Ease 65 

I Will Not Fear 65 

When At the Last 66 

Where Time's Long River 66 

White Rose 66 

Now My Love Is Flown Away .... 68 

Testimony 68 

What Is the Spirit? 69 

In Bohemia : A Corona of Sonnets ... 71 



YELLOW CLOVER 



YELLOW CLOVER 

Must I, who walk alone, 

Come on it still, 

This Puck of plants 

The wise would do away with. 

The sunshine slants 

To play with, 

Our wee, gold-dusty flower, the yellow clover, 

Which once in parting for a time 

That then seemed long, 

Ere time for you was over, 

We sealed our own? 

Do you remember yet, 

O Soul beyond the stars. 

Beyond the uttermost dim bars 

Of space, 

Dear Soul who found earth sweet, 

Remember by love's grace. 



4 YELLOW CLOVER 

In dreamy hushes of the heavenly song, 

How suddenly we halted in our climb, 

Lingering, reluctant, up that farthest hill, 

Stooped for the blossoms closest to our feet, 

And gave them as a token 

Each to each. 

In lieu of speech. 

In lieu of words too grievous to be spoken. 

Those little, gypsy, wondering blossoms wet 

With a strange dew of tears? 

So it began. 

This vagabond, unvalued yellow clover. 

To be our tenderest language. All the years 

It lent a new zest to the summer hours, 

As each of us went scheming to surprise 

The other with our homely, laureate flowers, 

Sonnets and odes. 

Fringing our daily roads. 

Can amaranth and asphodel 

Bring merrier laughter to your eyes ? 

Oh, if the Blest, in their serene abodes, 



YELLOW CLOVER 5 

Keep any wistful consciousness of earth, 

Not grandeurs, but the childish ways of love, 

Simplicities of mirth, 

Must follow them above 

With touches of vague homesickness that pass 

Like shadows of swift birds across the grass. 

How oft, beneath some foreign arch of sky. 

The rover, 

You or I, 

For life oft sundered look from look. 

And voice from voice, the transient dearth 

Schooling my soul to brook 

This distance that no messages may span. 

Would chance 

Upon our wilding by a lonely well, 

Or drowsy watermill. 

Or swaying to the chime of convent bell, 

Or where the nightingales of old romance 

With tragical contraltos fill 

Dim solitudes of infinite desire; 

And once I joyed to meet 

Our peasant gadabout 



6 YELLOW CLOVER 

A trespasser on trim, seigniorial seat, 
Twinkling a saucy eye 
As potentates paced by. 

Our golden cord ! our soft, pursuing flame 

From friendship's altar fire! 

How proudly we would pluck and tame 

The dimpling clusters, mutinously gay ! 

How swiftly they were sent 

Far, far away 

On journeys wide 

By sea and continent, 

Green miles and blue leagues over. 

From each of us to each. 

That so our hearts might reach 

And touch within the yellow clover. 

Love's letter to be glad about 

Like sunshine when it came ! 

My sorrow asks no healing ; it is love ; 
Let love then make me brave 
To bear the keen hurts of 
This careless summertide, 



YELLOW CLOVER 

Ay, of our own poor flower, 

Changed with our fatal hour, 

For all its sunshine vanished when you died. 

Only white clover blossoms on your grave. 



"SHE IS THE GRACE OF 
ALL THAT ARE" 



"SHE IS THE GRACE OF ALL 
THAT ARE" 

'(Ben Jonson) 

She is the grace of all that are, 

The fragrancy of morn, 
The wild, blithe ring, afar, afar, 

Of Dian's horn. 

She is the hidden carol in 

The fringes of the wood, 
The sudden blue when clouds wax thin. 

The joy of good. 

May God who wrought our fleeting race 

Forbid her fatal star. 

Remembering she is the grace 

Of all that are. 

II 



A MOUNTAIN SOUL 

A MOUNTAIN soul, she shines in crystal air 

Above the smokes and clamors of the town. 
Her pure, majestic brows serenely wear 
The stars for crown. 

The buzzing wings of folly, slander, spite, 

Fall frozen in her alien atmosphere. 
Her heart's at home with sunrise and with 
night 

As neighbors dear 

Who tell her ancient tales of time and law, 
The miracle of love breathed into dust, 
Until her sweet gray eyes are brimmed with 
awe 

And steadfast trust. 

Remote she dwells mid her celestial kin, 
Rainbow and Moon and Cloud, yet none the 
less 
Full many a weak earth-creature shelters in 
Her friendliness. 



A MOUNTAIN SOUL 13 

She comrades with the child, the bird, the fern, 

Poet and sage and rustic chimney-nook, 
But Pomp must be a pilgrim ere he earn 
Her mountain look, — 

Her mountain look, the candor of the snow, 

The strength of folded granite, and the calm 
Of choiring pines, whose swayed green 
branches strow 

A healing balm. 

Oft as the psalmist lifted up his eyes 

Unto the hills about Jerusalem, 
Did not God's glory with a new surprise 
Transfigure them? 

That royal harper, passionate for rest. 

Held one still summit dearest to his dream, 
And only to the golden chords confessed 
Its hour supreme; 

For lovely is a mountain rosy-lit 

With dawn, or steeped in sunshine, azure- 
hot, 



14 YELLOW CLOVER 

But loveliest when shadows traverse it 
And stain it not. 



LOVE PLANTED A ROSE 

Love planted a rose, 

And the world turned sweet. 
Where the wheat-field blows 
Love planted a rose. 
Up the mill-wheel's prose 

Ran a music-beat. 
Love planted a rose, 

And the world turned sweet. 

MEASURES 

Measure grist by the millful, 
Dew by the daffodil £ul, 
April clouds by the skyful, 
Tears by Ophelia's eyeful ; 
Measure leaves by the elmful, 
Slaves by the tyrant's realm ful, 
Green-capped gnomes by the hill ful, 



WHEN IT BEFORTUNES US 15 

Rhymes by Romeo's quill ful; 
Measure sweets by the jarful, 
Dreams by the brooding starful, 
Robes by the bridal chestful, 
Songs by Bobolink's breastful; 
Thorns by the rose's stem ful, 
Gems by the diademful, 
Gold and dust by the cartful, 
Only love by the heartful. 



WHEN IT BEFORTUNES US 

When It befortunes us, who love so dearly, 
To hurt each other, let us haste to wring 
This joy from our remorseful passioning, — 
The wound is witness that we love sincerely. 
So slight a weapon, word or silence merely. 
Would scarce effect surprisal of a sting, 
Were't not thy word, my silence, for we cling 
One soul together. Life allots austerely 
Unto the rose of love the thorny power 
To tear the heart, but ah, love's anodyne! 



16 YELLOW CLOVER 

The prick but proves the presence of the flower, 
Our one white rose from gardens all divine. 
Then, only then, could grief outlast her hour 
Were I ungrieved by least rebuff of thine. 

THE VICTORY 
The blue sky at its deepest was pricked by one 

keen star 
That flashed a signal to the moon's uplifted 

scimitar, 
And like a quarrel in a dream we spake with 

angry breath, 
Till in that place of shadows our Love was 

done to death. 

God hung the dawn with carmine and pillared 

it with gold 
To welcome in our new Love, the angel of the 

old. 
With lips still pale from requiems and litanies 

she came, 
But home-sweet lights were in her eyes, — the 

same, and not the same. 



MADONNA 17 

All that was mortal of her, the passion, the 

caprice, 
We had wrapt in cloud-white linen and laid 

away at peace ; 
But the living Spirit stood within the temple 

of the sun, 
Her agony accomplished, her consecration won. 

MADONNA 

Once we beheld ecstatic cripples flinging 
Away their crutches at a pilgrim shrine. 
Do you remember, at the feet divine 
Of Mary and her Child, that mother bringing 
Her own poor baby-boy deformed, and wring- 
ing 
Her toilworn hands in supplication? Sign 
Of healing there was none; only the whine 
Of that repulsive child; only the clinging 
Of those gaunt hands. The haloed image stood 
Tranquil, unheeding, with its mantle blue 
Gathered about that little Christ of wood. 
Linen and laces. Then I looked to you 



18 YELLOW CLOVER 

And saw the pure Madonna yearning through 
Your pitying face holy with motherhood. 



OUR DRIFTWOOD FIRE 

How we dehghted in our driftwood fire, 
When festal eves would merrily decree it, 

Dances of rainbow witches high and higher ! 
We, when this old earth burns, would love 
to see it. 



THE CHANGING ROAD 

Beneath the softly falling snow 
The wood whose shy anemones 

We plucked such little while ago 
Becomes a wood of Christmas trees. 

Our paths of rustling silken grass 
Will soon be ermine bands of white 

Spotted with tiny steps that pass 
On silent errands in the night. 



THE CHANGING ROAD 19 

The river will be locked in hush 

But frosted like a fairy lawn 
With knots of crystal flowers that flush 

By moonlight, blanching in the dawn. 

Flown are our minstrels, golden-wing 
And rosy-breast and ruby-throat, 

But all the pines are murmuring 
A sweet, orchestral under-note. 

So trustfully our hands we lay 
Within the old, kind hands of Time, 

Who holds on his mysterious way 

From rime to bloom, from bloom to rime, 

And lets us run beside his knee 

O'er rough and smooth, and touch his load. 
And play we bear the burden, we, 

And revel in the changing road, 

Till ivory dawn and purple noon 

And dove-grey eve have one by one 

Traced on the skies their ancient rune. 
And all our little strength is done. 



20 YELLOW CLOVER 

Then Time shall lift a starry torch 

In signal to his gentle Twin, 
Who, stooping from a shining porch, 

Gathers the drowsy children in. 

I wonder if, through that strange sleep 
Unstirred by clock or silver chime. 

Our dreams will not the cadence keep 
Of those unresting feet of Time, 

And follow on his beauteous path 

From snow to flowers, from flowers to snow. 
And marvel what high charge he hath. 

Whither the fearless footsteps go. 



THE DAY IS WANING 

The day is waning; gracious shadows grow; 
Sweetness of vesper bells is on the air; 
The soul is stirred, a dreaming embryo, 

With impulses to fare 

She knows not where. 



THE DAY IS WANING 21 

Why should we long to live till life become 

Dotage or lethargy or feeble fret 

Of energies at ebb? When years benumb, 

Pierced with the sleep-thorn, let 

The dust forget. 

But like a song from crumbling folio, 

A blossom springing from the broken seed. 

Shall not the pilgrim spirit onward go 

Whither the bidding lead, 

Unfrightened, freed. 

Fain of the fresh adventure, trusting Death 
As porter in her Father's house, one who 
Shall shut the door upon the failing breath, 

But lead her safely through 

To welcomes new ? 

For here we pause but in the portico 
Of that great temple, radiant with mirth 
And beauty. Life. Even as we came, we go. 

The ritual of earth 

Began with birth; 



22 YELLOW CLOVER 

Doth it not end with birth ? From star to star 
Shall we not walk the fire who walked the clod, 
Nor find the bright, ascending journey far, 

Treading, as here we trod, 

Handfast with God? 

The day is waning; prophesyings blow 

Upon the wind; our wondering hearts are 

wooed 
By secret whisperings, and long to know. 

Atoms of valiant mood. 

Infinitude. 

FELICES 

We count them happy who have richly known 
The sweets of life, the sunshine on the hills, 
The mosses in the valley, love that fills 
The heart with tears as fragrant as thine own, 
O tender moonlight lily, over-blown. 
When the inevitable season wills. 
By gentle winds beside thy native rills — 
We count them happy, yet not these alone. 



THE TRYST 23 

There Is a Crown of Thorns, Way of the 

Cross, 
Consuming Fire that burns the spirit pure. 
By luster of the gold set free from dross, 
By light of heaven seen best through earth's 

obscure, 
By the exceeding gain that waits on loss — 
Behold, we count them happy who endure. 

LYING TOO FAINT TO LOOK 
Lying too faint to look, too spent to stir, 

By open window, what a carol came, 
The rapture of some scarlet tanager. 

As if a voice were uttered out of flame! 

THE TRYST 1 
I HAD come to the trysting place 

To meet with Grief. 
Like flint I had set my face. 
Lest when the dark hour strike 
My heart should crumble like 
A withered leaf. 
^ Written after the first operation. 



24 YELLOW CLOVER 

Under the aspen tree 

I waited till 
The stars made sport of me, 
Finding it curious 
A soul should shudder thus 

Before God's will. 

A bell began to throb, 

And ere it missed 
The echo of my sob, 
Like silver sunrise flame 
Joy through the shadows came 

To keep the tryst. 

AT HOLMENKOLLEN 

Under our balcony twinkles 
The capital city of Norway, 
Christiania, toy-like 
There in the shimmering spaces 
Of her encompassing mountains. 
Peeping one over the radiant 
Shoulder or crest of another, 



AT HOLMENKOLLEN 25 

Called from their silver recesses 

But to glisten and vanish 

Back to the borders of Dreamland; 

Christiania, only 

An incident there in our vista 

Of deepening, melting horizons, 

Of soft green levels divided 

By ranks of spruces and hemlocks, 

And pines like tapering spires, 

The austere grace of the Norland; 

Of isle-flecked waters that chanted 

Under the keels of the Vikings, 

Where now like butterflies cluster 

Tiny white sails and wee playboats 

Feathered with smoke; ocean liners 

Some of them are, but all dwindled 

To elfin similitude under 

The mighty enchantment that chastens 

Christiania into an item 

Of the beauty our balcony watches. 

Yet we shall longer remember 
The vast ethereal pageants, 



26 YELLOW CLOVER 

Cloud-play and storm-sweep and rain-rush, 

All the immense panorama 

Of this ever-changeable sky-dome 

The crystalline roof-tree of Odin, 

Who gleams through his mist-woven curtains, 

Who tosses his spear in the sunrise. 

We shall remember the coast- fog, 

Blurring, enfolding the landscape. 

Suddenly shot through with sunshine. 

Thinning and dazzling and lifting. 

Rising on undulant pinions 

Like a white sea-gull upsoaring 

To be lost in caerulean distance ; 

And the moon that glowed like a ruby, 

Like a hoarded great ruby the troll- folk 

Roll to the feet of Allfather; 

And sunsets like tapestry pictures 

Of the first strange priest at Christ's altar. 

Braving Thor's hammer, amazing 

The sea-blue eyes of the pagans 

That stare on his vestments embroidered 

In gold and in seed-pearl with angels, 



AT HOLMENKOLLEN 27 

Roses of Sharon and crosses; 
But longest of all, O Beloved, 
We shall remember the rainbow. 

Bi frost the Rainbow, no gossamer 
Scarf of a light-footed Iris, 
Nay, but the bridge to Valhalla, 
Fashioned by gods for the fearless, 
Wrought of the blues of the zenith, 
Greens of the sea-depth, and crimsons 
Forged in the flame-core, forever 
Guarded by white-armored Heimdall, 
We of the Outlands have seen it, 
Bi frost the Rainbow, and marvelled. 
For fair it flashed out from the rain-veil, 
Bright as if woven of banners. 
Broad, like a highway for heroes. 
Widening, melting, pervading. 
Spreading through space, as our friendship 
Colors all life into joyance. 
Flooding the sky and the water 
And earth with a quivering glory. 



28 YELLOW CLOVER 

Let us be glad of the portent, 

For the autumn winds are about us, 

The blowing garments of Odin, 

And the horn of Heimdall the warder, 

Waiting white in the dusk-fall, 

Shall blend with the winds in due season 

Its unappealable summons. 

Oh, then may we do no dishonor 

To the hope we have trusted together. 

The unbidden one speeding the chosen. 

As the uncaressable spirit, 

Joy-fellow, grief-fellow, beloved, 

Fares forth alone for the final, 

Valorous-hearted adventure, 

Over Bi frost the Rainbow, 

To the infinite welcome of Godhome. 

GOOD FRIDAY IN PARIS 

There at the pale feet of the Crucified, 

With not a sob breaking your quiet breath. 

You knelt and offered up your body's pride 
And beauty to a creeping, torturing death. 



HOW OFT WITH THEE 

How oft with thee, Dear Heart Adventurous, 
How oft I've fared this foaming deep with 

thee, 
Rejoicing in the splendors of a sea 
Never more jewel-shot, more luminous 
Than on this strange, swift journey, sweeping 

us 
To our home strand whence, peradventure, we 
Shall sail no more, for on that solemn quay 
A secret word from God awaiteth us. 
Through all the sob that loads our lightest 

breath, 
All wavelike passion of incessant prayer 
Beating that shore before we learn thereof 
What yet we have to hope or yet to bear, 
We stay our breaking hearts on this : Life, 

Death, 

The word is God's, whose every word is Love. 
29 



OUR CHRISTMAS TRUCE 

We let you suffer long before we called 
On morphine, life's last mercy, lest 

It fail you ere the end ; it softly shawled 
Your senses in a luxury of rest. 

For Pain, relenting in his long abuse, 
Proclaimed a Christmas truce. 

In that brief respite you were light of heart, 
Smiling beneath the wizard wand 

That seemed to duel with Death's very dart. 
You felt this Christmas beautiful beyond 

All Christmases your shining years had spent. 
So deep was your content. 

Even in the presence of your enemies, 

Grim enemies. Disease and Death, 
Your cup flowed over. From the forest trees 
Came sprays of pine to shed their spicy 
breath 
On walls and screens where holly boughs made 
merry 
With vines of partridge berry. 
30 



OUR CHRISTMAS TRUCE 31 

All day the flowers came flocking in until 
Their colors glorified your room; 

Azaleas flushed each snowy window-sill ; 
Japonica, carnation blent their bloom ; 

Violets and roses by you ; nearer yet 
Pansies and mignonette. ' 

The blue browallia made a patch of sky; 

Jonquils and daffodils together 
Wrought such a glow of sunshine that the eye 

Was dazzled. From afar came purple 
heather, 
Poinsettias, acacia. South and West 

Vied which should love you best. 

And still they came and still, surprised, you 
learned 
How many wistful loyalties. 
How many faiths, affections, friendships 
yearned 
To you and your last Christmastide in these 
Farewells from hands you would not clasp 
again, 
These lilies, cyclamen. 



32 YELLOW CLOVER 

You planned our festival from dawn to eve; 

You claimed a morsel of our feast 
And gave it to the birds. Each must receive 

The gift that you had hidden in the least 
Of evergreens, that crispy, tinselled spruce 

Cut for our Christmas truce. 

Wearied by very happiness, you slept 
In your own Paradise of flowers. 

Till I, who by your side hushed vigil kept, 
Could almost hope you were no longer ours, 

But gone to the unfading gardens, gone 
Beyond the dread of dawn. 



HOLY SPIRIT GONE FREE 



HOLY SPIRIT GONE FREE 

Holy spirit gone free, 
Free of the weary clay, 

What do the glad eyes see 
This first day? 

Where is Heaven for thee? 

Art thou adoring the Throne, 
Kissing the Wounded Feet? 

Art thou greeting thine own, 
Souls home-sweet? 

Whither, O whither flown? 

Art thou lingering Here, 
Still, as aforetime, fain 

Sorrow of mine to cheer? 
In this pain 

Art thou the courage, Dear? 
35 



STARRY RUNAWAY 

No, no, Beloved; starry runaway, 

Even my heartbreak would not call thee back 
To this pain- wasted majesty of clay, 

But help me bear it, — bear this almanac 

On thine own desk, that tells me yesterday 
Thy voice was still my courage, thy gray eyes 

My joy, and sets in desolate array 

The months to come. Yet thy far enterprise 

My own belated soul shall soon essay, 
In the pity of some certain hour set free 

To seek my Life. 'Tis but a threshold stay, 
A task or two, and then I'll follow thee. 



THE GOD OF SILENCE 

The God of Silence, at whose ancient shrine 

The Persians worshipped, was it thou, O 

Death, 

Thou who wilt grant thy favor, stern, benign, 

For no less offering than pulse and breath? 
36 



CREMATION 

Let the fires be swift, not slow. 
In the terror of the glow 
Let the awful change be wrought 
Till the flesh is light as thought. 

Will the spirit not pause and wait 
For her wonted faring-mate 
If it follow as pale motes may 
Up the slanting sunbeam way; 

If it drift as ashes might 
On the fragrances of night, 
By that one white breath of heat 
Shriven to pure and sweet? 

IF THE CELESTIAL BODY 

If the Celestial Body, ethereal, mystic, re- 
members 
Your Brunhild splendor of youth, 
If this that sprang up like a flame from the 
perishing mortal embers 
Is you in truth, 

37 



38 YELLOW CLOVER 

Angel face that looks with your eyes and lifts 
your brows under 
The oldtime glistening crown 
Of hair like the sunrise gold, face touched with 
child-wonder, 
Look down, look down, 

If not through forbidden rift in the sky, 
through some ivory casement 
Of dream in the sobbing night. 
And draw, as of old, my spirit from sorrow's 
selfish abasement 
To love's delight; 

For the swiftest gleam of your radiant glance 
in the unreturning 
Years of our mortal grace 
Would flood my heart with fulness of joy. Oh, 
lean to my yearning, 
Celestial face. 



IF YOU COULD COME 

My love, my love, if you could come once more 

From your high place, 
I would not question you for heavenly lore, 
But, silent, take the comfort of your face. 

I would not ask you if those golden spheres 

In love rejoice. 
If only our stained star hath sin and tears, 
But fill my famished hearing with your voice. 

One touch of you were worth a thousand 

creeds. 
My wound is numb 
Through toil-pressed day, but all night long 

it bleeds 
In aching dreams, and still you cannot come. 



39 



WHY WANDER MORE? 

Why wander more? My dreams have folded 
wing; 

Old longings for far beauty melt In grief. 
The pathos of all life, all withering, 

Is in the dancing of an April leaf. 



YOUR OWN PLANTS BLOOM AGAIN 

Your own plants bloom again. 

Azalea, cyclamen, 

Japonica, all keep their rendezvous 

With Christmas in the sun. 

Ah, but you. 

Whose Christmases are done, 

The heart of all the room. 

Where does my darling bloom ? 



40 



IN CEDAR HILL CEMETERY 
» (Newark, Ohio.) 

Wearily up the unfamiliar way, 

A traveller that cannot cease to crave 

The happiness your welcome ever gave, 

I come, Beloved, at the ebb of day, 

To keep my promised tryst with your far grave. 

The sunset lingers on the serried stones 

Of your home-gathering kindred, those who 

quaffed 
Life's fullest cup, and babies epitaphed 
For love, not deeds. Fluting his twilight tones 
A robin perches on the tapering shaft. 

O ashes, memory of mortal love. 

Sealed in your urn beneath the greensward, 

pure 
From all disease and all decay, secure 
From evil, what am I to weep above 
Your beautiful and tranquil sepulture? 
41 



42 YELLOW CLOVER 

The shadowy cedars climb the hill, all rife 
With whispers, that are less the wings of birds 
And stir of sprays than murmurous, dim words. 
Ah, death may comprehend them, but not life, 
Dark embryo that still the shell engirds. 

The two tall, sentinel white birches sift 
The soft blue skylight through serrated leaves. 
Lest shadow should too soon, too deeply drift 
Between your silence and my heart that heaves 
With its vain longing, while the quails uplift 

Their ringing calls from the dusk fields below, 
Heralds of joy on very edge of night. 
The eternal tide of stars begins to flow, 
Flecking the gloom with points of golden light, 
And I, whose task is long, arise and go. 

Is it you that follow me and fold me fast 
With your old comfort, quieting the strife 
Of stormy pulses, as in sorrows past? 
There is no sorrow but is peace at last. 
God grant there be no death that is not life! 



THE BROKEN-HEARTED 



THE BROKEN-HEARTED 

O STRANGE, hushed fellowship of those 

Who tread a darkened star, 

Who breathe the fragrance of the rose 

And thrill with pain instead 

Of that old joy, long dead! 

Amid earth's hurrying throngs they move 
Like spirits from afar. 
Exiled from their one land of love. 
Lost as a flood-whelmed leaf, 
Initiates of grief. 

They give the mystic countersign 
In glancing looks that are 
Illuminate with lore divine. 
Each anguish whispering each 
Closer than household speech. 
45 



46 YELLOW CLOVER 

Each casts his hard-earned alms into 
The other's craving jar, 
A grain of wisdom garnered through 
Wild, weeping storms, pale peace 
That blooms where longings cease. 

No badge they wear to worldly view 
— These of the hidden scar — 
But on their foreheads is the dew 
Anointed eyes may see 
Of dark Gethsemane. 

FIREWOOD 

First was a fire of myrtle, 
Just for my Love and me ; 

The storm at the door might hurtle, 
But safe within sat we. 

Now cypress boughs are burning 
Upon my hearth, and all 

Whose hearts are sore with yearning 
May share my forest-hall. 



LIFE 

Life went hand in hand with Joy 
Ere Life's heart was broken, 

This round world his magic toy 
Fashioned to betoken 

Some bright mystery that glows 

Jubilant in star and rose, 

Allah's fair incognitos. 

Life kept holiday with Joy 
Till Life's heart was broken. 

Now the star and rose but seem 

Forecasts of their fading, 
Pathos of a slipping dream. 

Ruin masquerading 
In a fragile gold and pink. 
Life bends brooding o'er the brink 
Whither stars and roses sink, 
Life to whom all beauties seem 
Forecasts of their fading. 



47 



SHUT OUT 

Death bars me from my garden, but by the 

dusty road 
Glints many a vagrant blossom the wind's 

caprices sowed. 

Death locks my door against me and flings the 
golden key 

To sink with many another beneath the moan- 
ing sea. 

But there are haunts for gypsies upon the 

heather moors, 
Where we share with one another the lore of 

out-of-doors ; 

And gypsy tells to gypsy what healing herbs 

are best 
When the old wound starts a-throbbing and 

starlight brings no rest. 



THE PATH OF SORROW 

The path of sorrow is no lonely path; 

Through every rock defile hushed foot- 
steps grope; 
No thorny covert that its winding hath 

But prayer is there and fellowship of hope. 

WORK 

O Work, drab angel, lead me day by day, 
A tired slave contented to obey, 
From task to task, by hand so firm and cool 
It quiets fever. Thus from life's long school 
At last I'll earn my quittance and away. 

A ROSE-WHITE CLOUD 

A ROSE-WHITE cloud that blossoms in the blue, 
Opening its curly petals one by one, 

Joy of divinest beauty, thrilling through 
A weary heart where even pain seemed 
done. 

49 



FAILURE ON FAILURE 

Failure on failure seed the slow success. 
All mired and bruised the footsore traveller 

came 
By swamp and steep, through unimagined 

stress, 

To envied fame. 

Sorrow on sorrow purge the selfish heart. 
Not till our dearest are caught up above 
Our hurt, our help, we learn life's finest art. 
The art of love. 

A FROSTED BUSH IN THE SUN 

An arsenal of diamond spears, 

A rainbow splintering 
Into a million points of sheen, 

A little blazing Troy. 
Its beauty stirs the pool of tears 

As by an angel's wing, 

Troubling the waters with a keen 

Revivifying joy. 
50 



POINTED FIRS 

Dull clang that hurts this dreamy air, 

Forgive me if I turn 
From you to little bells of dew 

Upon the forest fern. 

More lightly may I lift my prayer 
Beneath these pointed firs 

Imbued with simple sanctitude 
By woodland worshippers. 

The squirrel saints race up the stair, 
Frisking from bough to stem, 

For God finds no behavior odd 
In wild Jerusalem. 

I love the liberty they wear, 

Those green, soft-chanting spires 

That hush to hear the hermit thrush 
Voice earth's divine desires. 

Broken by grief, I cannot bear 

The ministry of words. 
Content to taste the sacrament 

Of winds and leaves and birds. 
51 



BIRDS AND BOOKS 

All day these ruby-throated humming-birds, 
Illiberal elves, 

Draw honey from the bee-balm at my door 
And offer me no share. 

All day the poets with melodious words 
Delight themselves, 

And of their graciousness my strength re- 
store 
For sorrow I must bear. 



LAUGHTER 

The daily commonplace our mirth would 

brighten 
With twinkling as of saffron butterflies 
On yellow-blossomed bush of indigo, 
But to the solemn joy beyond the skies, 
That crystal sphere no sun nor stars enlighten, 
Can Laughter come? The sages answer no. 

52 



YESTERDAY'S GRIEF 53 

Then, Laughter, in my lonely heart still tarry, 
A sweet and bitter fool, and gently break 
Your quips and whimsies on this brooding 

Grief 
Till he arouse. Ay, even for Sorrow's sake 
Stay with us that our burden we may carry 
More lightly for your loving disbelief. 



YESTERDAY'S GRIEF 

The rain that fell a yesterday is ruby on the 
roses, 

Silver on the poplar-leaf and gold on willow- 
stem; 

The grief that chanced a yesterday is silence 
that encloses 

Holy loves where time and change shall never 
trouble them. 



54 YELLOW CLOVER 

The rain that fell a yesterday makes all the 

hillside glisten, 
Coral on the laurel and beryl on the grass ; 
The grief that chanced a yesterday has taught 

the soul to listen 
For whispers of eternity in all the winds that 

pass. 

O faint-of-heart, storm-beaten, this rain will 

gleam to-morrow 
Flame within the columbine and jewels on the 

thorn, 
Heaven in the forget-me-not; though sorrow 

now be sorrow, 
Yet sorrow shall be beauty in the magic of the 

morn. 



WESTERING HEART 



WESTERING HEART 

Westering Heart, Restless Heart, Heart of 

the Pioneer, 

Still I wonder, wonder, what is Heaven to thee ; 

Lover of far horizons, eager to bring them 

near. 

Journeying Heart, Yearning Heart, rover of 

land and sea. 

What can stay the feet we knew. 

Springing feet our meadows mourn, 

From adventuring the blue 

Undiscovered bourne. 

Where the stars, God's wild canaries, 

Sing above the ether prairies, 

And the dream of time flows on 

To illimitable dawn? 
57 



58 YELLOW CLOVER 

Tender Heart, Defender Heart, bowed with the 

wide world's woe, 
Bearing thine own grief lightly, lightly as 

mortal might. 
Shedding on dim, steep pathways the courage 

of thy glow, 
Gleaming Heart, Redeeming Heart, a torch 
against the night; 

Not the peace of Paradise 
Long can hold thee, ransomed, blest, 
From the old, glad sacrifice. 
From the un forgotten quest. 
On the wastes remotest, barren, 
Watering the Rose of Sharon 
Till the bleak and bitter sand 
Blossoms into Holy Land. 



Lifted Heart, Pain-sifted Heart, that madest 

death a psalm, 
Pallid with sore suffering, yet kissing still the 

rod, 



WESTERING HEART 59 

Hushed and held within some great encompass- 
ment of calm, 

Soaring Heart, Adoring Heart, to whom "it all 
is God," 

What though precious gem on gem 
Build the shining Zion walls, 
Christ is thy Jerusalem, 
Wheresoe'er His service calls. 
O our Star, at rest in motion. 
Lost in light, as wave in ocean. 
May thy ministering bliss 
Still remember what we miss. 



TO ONE WHO WAITS 

I COUNT the years by Junes that flush our 

laurel, 
Our clustered bushes at the corner-wall, 
And coax the crinkled buds to spread their 

small. 
White chalices pricked out with rose and coral. 
Slow are the seasons, yet I may not quarrel 
With beauty. Dawns and stars, blossoms that 

foam 
Enchanted orchards, where the orioles call. 
Green leaves that flutter, golden leaves that fall, 
Cloud caravans of snow will bring me home. 
I count the years by Junes that flush our laurel. 

What changes chronicle the life eternal? 
Beyond the starry archipelagoes, 
How do you calendar the stream that flows. 
Forever singing, from the Throne super- 
nal? 
For as in wheat the sweetness of the kernel 

Is ripened with the sunshine more and more, 
60 



TO ONE WHO WAITS 61 

Let sorrow trust, where mortal wisdom knows 
Nothing, ah nothing, that the love of those 
Who made earth heaven is greater than before 
And watches for us in the life eternal. 

If human love be but the soul's rehearsal 
For that high harmony so piercing sweet 
Its rhythm is pulsing in the wildest beat 
Of passion, in the quietest dispersal 
Of household blessings, Love the universal 
Music of being, must not. Dear and True, 
Our love that longs in me still yearn in you, 
New-christened at the wide-winged Mercy seat 
To a redeeming grace, my Paraclete, 
For the divine accord my soul's rehearsal? 

I count the years by Junes that flush our laurel. 
And you, perchance, in some shy interspace 
Of Paradise, have found a woodsy place, 
A bit of wild that welcomes fern and sorrel, 
Where mystery of moss and prickly moral 
Of briar-rose may spring in finer bloom, 
And Time's old witchery so far presume 



62 YELLOW CLOVER 

That you, impatient for the glad embrace, 
May now and then a dewy footpath trace 
To see if June again has flushed the laurel. 

THE GATES OF DEATH 

Marmoreal, impregnable, 

Immutable, we bear 
The searching shafts of human thought, 

The onset of despair. 
The indistinguishable cell 

Of spirit and of brain 
Through all the centuries has fought 

Its puny fight in vain. 

The pageant of humanity 

Dissolves as on it falls 
The shadow of our bulwarks dense. 

Our unrevealing walls. 
Its starcraft is but vanity. 

Its aspen faith but blows 
In winds whose whither and whose whence 

No mind of mortal knows. 



LOOKING ON THE MILKY WAY 63 

Yet is there one strong battle-lord 

Who still the day retrieves. 
Ashes and dust are infidel ; 

His very life believes. 
Forever is his only word. 

Breath is incredulous, 
But Love, undaunted, terrible, 

Demands his own of us. 

LOOKING ON THE MILKY WAY 
Flood of stars that hold your course 
High across the night. 
Serried lustres numberless 
As the souls that Godward press 
In continual flight. 
From what flaming wildfire source, 
Shimmering river of the skies, 
Tide of light, 
Do your waves arise? 

Toward what fatal fall does your 

Flowing current gleam. 

While those flocking souls ascend 



64 YELLOW CLOVER 

Ever upward? For what end 
Can there be to love? 
Only in faith that loves endure, 
We, a momentary race. 
Dare to dream 
Spirit outsoars space. 



IMMORTALITY 

The Angel of the Sun 

Had spread a wing of flame 
Athwart the orient sky; 
Then grew my spirit one 

With Beauty and became 

A Joy that could not die. 

At some far torch of gold 
The shining soul was lit 

And claims celestial kin. 
Shadows its house enfold. 
But are not one with it. 

The splendor bides within. 



I WILL NOT FEAR 65 

Sorrow and vain desire 

Are drifts of darkness gone 
Upon the ebb of night. 
Spark of the primal fire, 

BHss wakens with the dawn, 
Light answering to Hght. 



THE LUXURY OF EASE 

The luxury of ease comes after ache ; 

Joy of reunion cannot be except 
By pang of parting; only death may break 

My way to you whom I so long have 
wept. 



I WILL NOT FEAR 

I WILL not fear the Valley, for amid 
The blur of the innumerable dead. 

Your glimmering footsteps cannot be so hid 
But I shall follow in them, homeward led. 



WHEN AT THE LAST 

When at the last I lift my lids to brook 

The close-bent face of Death, perchance I'll 
see 
Your wide, sweet eyes, with their eternal look 
Of childhood, smiling through the mist on 
me. 

WHERE TIME'S LONG RIVER 

Where Time's long river hushes in the sea, 
Beyond the furthest coast of starry space, 

I dream that my far traveller waits for me, 
Poised like a bird in glad, impatient grace, 

WHITE ROSE 

White rose, white rose, 

Thou that art 

All my garden. 

Walled, apart, 

Grief my white rose. 

Thorn in heart! 
66 



WHITE ROSE 67 

White rose, pale 
As brooding star 
Over Arden, 
Where dreams are ! 
All shall fail 
That is not far. 

White rose, white rose, 
No storms beat 
On thy petals. 
Blooming sweet, 
Love my white rose. 
At God's feet. 

White rose, what 
Is mortal fate, 
Rain and nettles? 
Roses wait. 
Death is but 
The garden gate. 



NOW MY LOVE IS FLOWN AWAY 
Now my Love is flown away 

Earth wears another semblance, 
Opal dawn and turquoise day, 

Stars and moon and sun 
Conscious are and mystical. 

Jewels of remembrance, 
Keepsakes from the festival. 

Our festival that's done. 

Now my Love is flown away 

The air is full of calling, 
Dewy voices that allay 

Thirst and dust-annoy. 
Tones that haunt the hall of Time, 

Crystal echoes falling 
From some far, ethereal chime 

Whose bell-ringer is Joy. 

TESTIMONY 

I, WHO am deaf and blind, 

I, lame and weak, 

Listen and seek. 

Follow and find; 
68 



WHAT IS THE SPIRIT? 69 

Yet have no word to say 

What I have found, 

Clearer than sound, 
Brighter than day; 

Wings in the heavy clod, 

Beauty in pain. 

Even the chain 
Bindeth to God. 

WHAT IS THE SPIRIT? 

i 

What is the spirit? Nay, 
We know not — star in clay. 

We know not, yet we trust 
The dream within the dust. 

We trust not, yet we hark 
The song within the dark. 

ii 

These few bewildered days 
Ask little blame or praise. 



70 YELLOW CLOVER 

All mortal deeds go by 
As cloudlets down the sky. 

We are our longing. Thus 
Let Love remember us. 

iii 
We know not whither beat 
Its wings, nor what defeat 

Death's mighty muffling glooms 
May cast on fluttering plumes, 

Or if it be success — 
That folded quietness. 

iv 

When like a flaming scroll 
Earth shrivels, if the soul 

Should those fierce heats outwear, 
What of ourselves were there? 

A longing bruised and dim, 
A seed of seraphim. 



IN BOHEMIA: 

A CORONA OF SONNETS 



IN BOHEMIA 

A CORONA OF SONNETS 
(I) 

I GIVE you joy, my Dearest. Death is done, 
Your martyrdom accomplished, and your crown 
Of sainthood, woven of such pains as drown 
Remembering eyes in tears, superbly won. 
No stain upon your faith's white splendor, 

none; 
No moment when you cast your courage down, 
A broken sword. You enter with renown 
Out of these shadows into radiant sun. 
Gone, gone ; yet still we pore upon your face. 
Your face already strange in sculptured pallor. 
Listening, but not to us; your face, a scroll 
Frailer than parchment, where we yet may trace 
A holy script. O loyalty! O valor! 
Your voice still echoes : "Bless the Lord, my 

soul." 

73 



74 YELLOW CLOVER 

Your voice still echoes: "Bless the Lord, my 

soul, 
And all that is within me, bless His name!" 
All, all within you? The disease, the shame 
Let loose in your pure body sweet and whole 
Beyond the wont of flesh, till evil stole 
On those unconscious tissues, torment came 
As furtively as some slow-creeping flame 
Corroding from within the golden bowl? 
Yea, verily, your body's bitter woe 
In your divine endurance blessed the Lord. 
Your youth of bounding pulses, one clear choir 
Of joy and strength and glorious desire, 
Could lift no strain of adoration so 
Poignant, angelic, suffering's master-chord. 

Poignant, angelic, suffering's master-chord, 
Your music rings through my bewildered days, 
A worship, and my spirit strives to raise 
Thanksgiving with your own, above this horde 
Of griefs, rebellions, yearnings. Oh, afford 
From your rich joy, in your old, generous ways, 



IN BOHEMIA 75 

Largess to me, that my torn heart may praise 
Death, even Death, your heahng, your reward. 
Death entered, bearer of the only key 
That could unlock the iron gates of pain. 
The Angel of the Lord, our very love 
Knelt in his shining, as he smote the chain 
From off your limbs, and swift you rose, set 

free. 
Forever free. My heart, be glad thereof ! 



It was heart's woe. Most Beautiful my Friend, 
To watch your bright hair wither, shoulders 

bend 
Beneath the burden. White as carrier-dove 
Your numb, forgetful hand, an empty glove, 
Lies on a quiet breast the hard gasps rend 
No longer. From the broken cage ascend, 
God's homing bird, to boundless air above. 
Your joy shall be my joy, — ay, though the 

word 
Chokes to a sob. My tragedy is done. 
I could laugh upon the stroke even of Orion's 



76 YELLOW CLOVER 

Great, gleaming sword, dull by comparison 
With that keen pang unbearable that heard 
Your only moan : "My soul is among lions." 

Your only moan : "My soul is among lions." 
You were on shipboard, sailing home to die. 
I sat beside you on the deck; the sky 
Glistened with constellations, starry scions 
Of an eternal fire. Not white-hot irons 
Could so have seared my spirit as that cry 
From your deep anguish. You will know me by 
That scar through joys of all imagined Zions. 
You, you, so light to leap, so fleet to race. 
Eager for burdens, I must see you shorn 
Of all those ardors, slowly dispossessed 
Of your proud heritage, turning your face 
Toward Death, your face each dawn more 

wan, more worn. 
I could not make him an unwelcome guest. 

I could not make him an unwelcome guest, 
For that dim morning, when I raised the shade 



IN BOHEMIA n 

Upon the joy of sunrise, you essayed 
To look with eyes that pleaded but for rest, 
So weary, O so weary. Peace was best. 
Yet as Death hushed the breath, your love de- 
layed 
His touch an instant, while your white lips made 
Effort tO' smile on me, a last behest 
Of courage. Ah, such little time be Tore 
In panting torture you had lifted arms 
To me for help I could not, could not give ; 
Yet in your utmost weakness, you restore 
My fainting strength. Delivered from all 

harms 
In your deliverance. Dear Heart, I live. 



In your deliverance. Dear Heart, I live. 
The olive cross you loved for Bethlehem, 
Slipt under your chill hand, with lily-stem, 
Merges in your mortality. We give 
Your tired beauty, wistful, fugitive. 
To chariot of fire. Your requiem 



78 YELLOW CLOVER 

Is chanted. Prayer and holy apothegm 
Are uttered. All is ashes, where no sieve 
Shall find forever form or face of you. 
But in your upper chamber, in your own 
Bohemia, wide-windowed to the sun, 
We are together, all our suffering through. 
Our long suspense and dread a shadow flown. 
I give you joy, my Dearest. Death is done. 



(11) 

Our word shall still be Joy, shall still be Joy. 
Death shall not be a frost that blackens all 
The blossoms in our garden. Love, I call 
To mind your life on earth, so to employ 
My aching thoughts, lest lurking grief decoy 
My spirit from its vow. And yet they fall. 
Slow tears, on even this cramped, childish 

scrawl 
Of hidden verses that you bade destroy. 
Where is that child, with wide gray eyes of 

wonder 



IN BOHEMIA 79 

And broad braids yellow as the prairie moon 
Whereon she gazed, suggesting with sage thrift 
To cut it into stars would be a boon, 
'Twould make so many ? Ah, sweet childhoods, 

plunder 
Of Time's fast wings, an April petal-drift! 

From Time's fast wings, an April petal-drift 
These songs have fluttered back, secretly 

penned, 
A murmurous joy, deep in the leafy bend 
Of silver-maple or in fragrant rift 
Of haystack. Were these ten small leaves a 

gift 
From Father's desk, this desk become my 

friend 
As it was his and yours? Did Mother mend 
With magic thread these rough-torn pages 

whiffed 
Down half a century that changed the child 
From form to form, a maid for men's desire. 
Scholar with quarreling books about her piled, 



80 YELLOW CLOVER 

Far traveller, sufferer, ashes on the pyre? 
How fierce an anguish to the spirit brings 
This mocking immortality of things! 

The mocking immortality of things 

Shall be forgiven to this tiny tome 

For its dear childishness, — epic of home, 

Ohio farm with joy of watersprings 

And cedars full of crystal carollings; 

Slow cows to drive and cosset lambs to comb; 

Sheep deftly yoked to turn the garden loam 

For labor-saving brothers; venturings 

Of emulous fleets that sailed the orchard brook, 

The proudest topped by mousetrap cabin where 

A frog sat skipper with a pompous look. 

Such hours are of their beauty unaware, 

White daisies dancing in a meadow nook, 

Till wistful memory beholds them fair. 

Your wistful memory beheld them fair 
And still more fair as further they receded, 
Those childhood scenes dawn-colored and dew- 
beaded. 



IN BOHEMIA 81 

All needments but few luxuries were there 
In that true home, — joyance of sun-steeped air, 
Tasks bubbling into frolic, hearts that heeded 
High voices, eager summer days that speeded 
To tranquil twilights. Grouped about the chair 
Where Mother with her mending took such rest 
As mothers may, on doorsteps fronting west 
Father and lads and lassies watched the strange 
Drama of sunset, glimpsing crown and wing 
And many a cloudy shape swift vanishing 
By nature's mandate of eternal change. 



By nature's mandate of eternal change 

That group has melted, like those shifting 

gleams 
Of air, a vision, one of many dreams 
That haunt the levels of that lonely grange. 
The soldier father was the first to range 
Beyond the sunset, he whom war's extremes 
Had wellnigh shattered, who from battle 

themes 



82 YELLOW CLOVER 

Turned sharply, as from thoughts he would 

estrange. 
The children's games of war he could not 

brook. 
Their Shiloh with small fallen heroes woke 
So deep a horror in his brooding look 
They ceased to play at slaughter, yet no less 
Joyed to behold him honored of the folk 
For manhood, as his wife for graciousness. 

Hers, when I knew her, was the graciousness 
Of one long regnant on the quiet throne 
Of love, — such love as tender children own 
For parents whom the heavy years oppress; 
Such love as she in turn poured back to bless 
Their varying ways with steadfast music, 

known 
From cradle-time as life's sweet undertone, 
The mother-love, unfailing, measureless. 
And forth from love there blossomed such 

high graces, 
Courage and courtesy, joy, wisdom clear. 



IN BOHEMIA 83 

A fortitude forbidding all complaints, 

That while she walketh now in heavenly 

places, 
I think the very stars must hold her dear 
And do her reverence as a queen of saints. 

You did her reverence as a queen of saints 
Many glad years together. When she passed 
Beyond your touch, your faith still held her 

fast, 
And as our human longing ever paints 
Its Paradise with flush of earth, and faints 
Before sheer spirit, so in that dread vast 
You saw her waiting, loving arms outcast, 
In the old happy doorway. What constraints 
Were those that led your brother's questing 

feet 
To even such homestead on a Berkshire hill 
For your last summer? Winds across the 

wheat. 
Frolic of calves, familiar farm employ 
Closed up your circle, while our word was still 



84 YELLOW CLOVER 

— O breaking hearts! — while still our word 
was Joy. 

(Ill) 

I could not bear my grief but that I must 
Is it not you who live, while I am dead, 
Cold as that stone whereon the fire was 

red, 
Now left alone to lichen or to dust? 
"Thoughts of a Stone" your title has it, just 
A bit of baby lyric, yet you said 
What here I prove, — the campfire glows are 

spread 
And trampled, picnic over, not a crust 
Of joy dropt for the stone whence flames rose 

bright, 
So bright it deemed itself a thing of fire. 
And I must bear this grief night after night. 
Day after day, through weeks and months and 

years, 
This grief become myself, too dull for tears, 
Bewildered past all pain, past all desire. 



IN BOHEMIA 85 

Bewildered past all pain, past all desire, 
I stare forever on a snowy scene, 
Blue glint of crusted drifts, the irised green 
Of frost-filmed pines, impertinence of spire 
And joy-lit panes, till shoot of anguish, dire 
As crematory heats within whose keen 
Embraces dies your beauty that has been. 
Stings me to consciousness. Then I inquire 
Of my forgotten senses, and I learn. 
Noting accustomed walls and voices near, 
I am no longer tranced in that return 
From white Mount Auburn, where we left you, 

Dear, 
— No, no, not you ; a worn-out robe to burn. 
Even as this globe shall gleam and disappear. 

Even as this globe shall gleam and disappear, 
My life has vanished, life of joy I led 
Folded in yours. Never again to tread 
The station platform, tired scrutineer 
Of every face, until a sudden cheer 
Tingles through all my veins, fatigue is sped, 



86 YELLOW CLOVER 

For you are with me, sweet as daily bread, 
Refreshing as cool water! Oh, the mere 
Touch of your hand, your hand that now is 

ashes, 
Turned all the day's vexations into mirth. 
Beside you in the car, its groaning pull 
And grinding brakes and harsh metallic crashes 
Made blither music than remains on earth ; 
And yet I wonder I am sorrowful. 

I wonder I am sorrowful, for now 
There is no pain to fear for you. The sting 
Of death is drawn. Escaped from suffering, 
The crown of thorns is lifted from your 

brow. 
I wonder I am sorrowful, for how 
Can I be warped with winter, when the spring 
Floods your free spirit, and its raptures wing 
Your golden flight from our bare mortal 

bough ? 
Yet, Ever Dearest, I am sorrowful, 
If apathy be sorrow. I receive 



IN BOHEMIA 87 

No joy of beauty from this snowflake wool 
That wraps so tenderly each writhen tree, 
Now that your tenderness is gone from me. 
Stark selfishness of sorrow ! Yet I grieve. 

Stark selfishness of sorrow! Yet I grieve, 
Vaguely aware of watchful loves that hold 
Their warmth between me and the utter cold. 
Patient and generous and wise, they leave 
Me here alone with you and grief, yet weave 
Sweet walls of roses round us, paly gold. 
Soft pink, clear camiine, white, in manifold 
Pattern of petals; mossy buds men thieve 
From Elfland, high-blown hearts of joy, tall 

stems 
Crowned with great flushes. In our own rose- 
garden 
We are together and I take reproof 
From your dear voice that would not have me 

harden 
My soul against such blessing. Love condemns 
The sorrow that from love would walk aloof. 



88 YELLOW CLOVER 

The sorrow that from love would walk aloof 
Implores forgiveness even while it sins. 
One heart is home; the many hearts are inns 
With glow of festal joy, with sheltering roof. 
Your life was of my life the warp and woof 
Whereon most precious friendships, disciplines, 
Passions embroidered rich designs. Grief 

wins 
Pardon from love for very love's behoof. 
For true love knows that love must still be true, 
Not kind pretender nor blind self -deceiver. 
It matters not what other mourners do ; 
I turn that nectar cup I drained with you 
Down on the board. No more shall there be 

Weaver 
Of Rainbows in my heaven's too tranquil blue. 



No Rainbow Weaver in my heaven's calm blue ; 
The magic gate through which each common 

thing 
Came shining with a strange transfiguring 



IN BOHEMIA 89 

Is sealed. Where now shall Grief keep rendez- 
vous 
With Comfort? Nay, I would not learn the 

new 
Who crave the old, — our water from the spring, 
Not sacramental wine. The seasons bring 
But phantoms of those joys that died with you. 
Years pass. The household feasts your old- 
time guests. 
A rose casts shadow on the cloth. Ah, thrust 
Of hidden hurt amid the flying jests! 
For that dark, silent image to my seeing 
Is memory-ghost of your warm, fragrant being. 
I could not bear my grief but that I must. 

(IV) 
Do you remember still your dear-loved earth. 
Shadows of stormy clouds that sweep across 
Old, castled Heidelberg; the golden gloss 
Of sands atoning to the Sphinx for dearth 
Of ancient splendors; strange Hawaiian mirth 
At arbor feast, where, heedless of their loss, 



90 YELLOW CLOVER 

Their vanishing, those bHthe brown folk would 

toss 
Wreathed heads to music, as if life were worth, 
Even on such sliding brink, its hour of joy? 
Do you remember how the sunsets burned 
In Norway skies? Not pain itself could cloy 
Your wild-bird heart that ever longed to roam, 
That ever for the bluer distance yearned 
And on each bough of beauty was at home. 

God's bird, upon his every bough at home, 
With skylarks on a Devon cliff between 
The purple moors and purple sea, in green 
Swiss valleys, in fair Florence, royal Rome, 
Amid grim totem-poles by frozen foam ; 
Poplars of France that follow her serene, 
Broad rivers; Andalusian groves, with sheen 
Of orange and pomegranate, 'neath the dome 
Of drowsy convent or above the game 
Of choral children; bells of Brittany 
Pouring their joyous gloria upon 
The villagers, whose piety must don 



IN BOHEMIA 91 

To please the Saint their quaintest finery. 
Horizons flushed about you when you came. 

Horizons flushed about you when you came. 
Our low skies lifted and the world looked in. 
Joy-fellow of the journeying sun and kin 
To that wind-god whose feet were plumed with 

flame, 
Still, scholar, teacher, still your steadfast aim 
Was understanding of the ways that win 
Men upward from a blind, brute origin 
To ordered peoples. Ever would you claim 
That in our own crude country glows romance 
Whereby the elder charm of Europe fades. 
Falls of the Rhine you deemed Undine's dance 
To great Columbia's thundering cascades. 
Prophets that from her cloudy palisades 
Summoned the pioneers to glorious chance. 

The pioneers who took that glorious chance 
You traced o'er plain and mountain, hunters, 
trappers. 



92 YELLOW CLOVER 

Gold-seekers, prairie schooners with child-nap- 

pers 
In mother's arms, babes whose inheritance 
Of virgin land in limitless expanse 
Was won by hero fathers, — daring tappers 
Of earth's hid treasuries, unconscious mappers 
Of new dominions for mankind's advance. 
Their courage beat like joy within your pulse. 
Sleeping delicious hours of night away 
On a Pacific beach mid shells and dulse. 
Children beside you and a young moon beam- 
ing 
Upon the surf that splashed you in its play, 
Even then of their adventure you were 
dreaming. 

Always of their adventure you were dreaming, 
Retreading their hard paths and poring long 
Over their crabbed scripts, with patience strong 
As zest itself, until your mind was teeming 
With frontier lore. I laughed to hear it stream- 
ing, 



IN BOHEMIA 93 

Untiring as the red-eyed vireo's song, 

From lips folk called reserved nor did them 

wrong ; 
But silence had at last its full redeeming. 
Your earlier volumes had but blazed the w^ay 
For this, your own heart's book, your joy of 

toil, 
To be of all your glad achievement crown. 
I watched the gold fruit ripening day by day 
And felt your dream's incredulous recoil 
When merciless disease would face it down. 

Not merciless disease might face it down. 
Through those four years beset with wasting 

pain. 
The surgeon's knife again and yet again. 
Our spring of joy slow withering to brown 
Autumn of ruin, still your dream, like town 
Stormed by resistless armies, would not deign 
To lower its proud banner. So we twain 
Finished your book beneath Death's very 

frown. 



94 YELLOW CLOVER 

For all the hospital punctilio, 

Through the drear night within your mind 

would grow 
Those sentences my morning pen would spring 
To meet, while guilty mirth flashed to and 

fro 
From your brave eyes to mine, for joy and 

woe 
As comrades climbed your height of suffering. 

Joy climbed with woe your height of suffering. 
Oft in your clouded eyes, as if soft-kissed. 
Pleasure would brighten, banishing the mist 
Of weariness, while from past journeying 
Kind memory would many a picture bring. 
Your Rockies robed in sunny amethyst, 
Or that stupendous canon, annalist 
Of all the aeons. To your heart would cling 
Sweet, showery Aprils with their miracle 
Of leaf and blossom, frozen nature's birth 
Into fresh loveliness. Again the spell 
Of Italy was on you and you smiled 



IN BOHEMIA 95 

As when you caught her songs from singing 

child. 
Do you remember still your dear-loved earth? 

(V) 

Do saints go gypsying in Paradise? 
How merrily, escaped from golden street 
And jasper wall, your footsteps light and fleet 
Would rove the wildwood — wood whose happy 

spice 
And balm conceal no treacherous device 
Of trap to snare and shatter small furred feet, 
Where no shot bird beats broken wing! Oh, 

sweet 
To taste a joy not bought by sacrifice! 
Have you, as on Lake Ripley, bungalow 
By water's edge, where from your sunrise bath 
To twilight hymn the saucy chipmunks strow 
Your floor with shells, scolding in frolic wrath 
To see you sweep them forth? And up your 

path 
What other heavenly callers come and go? 



96 YELLOW CLOVER 

What other heavenly callers come and go 
To hear your voice, my best of music hushed, 
To rest beside the lake on ledges plushed 
With moss and watch the tall marsh rushes 

blow, 
Red-shouldered blackbirds flashing to and fro 
Above the water-lilies, and the flushed 
Breast of the robin guarding nest soft-brushed 
By dancing linden leaves? Do cherubs know 
Your welcome, as so many children here 
Have known it ? For you ever used to say 
Their joy of laughter was your perfect cure 
For weariness. You were so tired. Dear, 
Before you died, please God that now with pure 
Spirits of childhood you keep holiday. 

Spirits of childhood, keeping holiday 
On your broad steps that to the rippling lake 
Descend, would call on Sigurd to awake 
In his low grave. How could our collie stay 
With earth, when you had fled so far away? 
Our most adoring lover ! For love's sake 



IN BOHEMIA 97 

The seal of death's enchanted door would 

break, 
And Heaven be gladder for his winsome play. 
With what a joyful plunge he would chase the 

stick 
Flung forth into that little sea of glass ! 
How proudly swim with it to shore and flick 
A crystal rain on scampering cherubim ; 
Then, well content, your hand caressing him, 
Stretch on the threshold, greeting all who pass. 

Over your threshold eagerly would pass 
Your blessed dead, on furlough from employ 
In that new life where service still is joy, 
Parents and sister and the baby lass 
Your arms once cherished, now in wisdom's 

class 
So high 'tis hei s to train with starry toy 
And many a bright, angelical decoy 
Your own celestial infancy. The grass 
That never withers feels the drawing nigh 
Of two dear brothers, yet unused to wend 



98 YELLOW CLOVER 

The ways of Zion, but of instinct true 
To find the violet path that leads to you, 
And with the later fares a laughing friend 
Whom Sigurd springs to meet with lyric cry. 

Only for her he lifts his lyric cry, 

Lady of Cedar Hill, yet proffers paw 

Full cordially to all who, by the law 

That brings our own to us at last, though sky 

Must melt between, your threshold glorify, 

— Our Pearl of Wellesley poets, who would 

draw 
New dreams from Plato; Lincoln, not a flaw 
Left on that beauty angels know him by; 
Francis the Pitiful, and our vesper bell, 
Christina, who while still on earth knew well, 
Even as the psalmist king of Israel, 
Heaven's joy of harping, — words of hers rose 

faint 
From your pale lips, the last ere silence fell, — 
And One with Whom your soul was best ac- 
quaint. 



IN BOHEMIA 99 

That One with Whom your soul was best 

acquaint, 
The wandering Christ Who loved the cedar 

trees 
Of Lebanon, the red anemones 
Of Carmel, Whose low bidding put restraint 
On stormy waves, Who fled from the complaint 
Of hungering multitudes to shores like these, 
Reeds shaken with the wind, may He not please 
To come to you, His follower. His saint? 

Joy of Joys! Beatitude complete! 

1 see you kneel to anoint those wayworn feet 
With ointment from your alabaster box 

Of precious faith. But straightway doubt 

strikes chilly 
Across the heart and my poor babbling mocks. 
How may the earth-blind bulb behold the lily? 

How may the earth-blind bulb behold the bliss 
Of lilies, dance and color, odor, air? 
Or iridescent wings their joy declare 
To that dark prisoner in the chrysalis? 



100 YELLOW CLOVER 

Thought reels before the metamorphosis 
Of mortal to immortal. Lest despair 
Rob us of strength for burdens yet to bear, 
We tease God's inconceivable with this 
Mere childishness of query upon query. 
Have they no need of us who need them so? 
Do they never, of eternity grown weary. 
Long for the river-song of Time's onflow? 
Can one tree, even the Tree of Life, suffice? 
Do saints go gypsying in Paradise? 



(VI) 

No more than memory, love's afterglow? 

Our quarter century of joy, can it 

Be all? The lilting hours like birds would flit 

By us, who loitered in the portico 

Of love's high palace. Time enough to know 

Its court decorum, nor would mind admit 

Love's term of learning was not infinite. 

Ah, courtesies my carelessness let go! 



IN BOHEMIA 101 

Then you forsook me ere my love was wise, 
Not wise enough to know if still you are, 
Too pure a light for my enshadowed eyes, 
Or if, unconscious of my very grief. 
Your vanished spirit, beautiful as brief. 
Be quenched in darkness, like a shooting star. 



Quenched in deep darkness, like a shooting star, 
Or hidden as the moon within a cloud? 
How often have we watched her, silver-browed, 
Engulfed by gloom, and soon, upon its far, 
Joy-brightened rim, emerge without a scar 
On her pale splendor? Do you wear your 

shroud 
So lightly ? We but know that disallowed 
To mortal vision is your avatar. 
Nay, I must journey past all moons, all aid 
Of these discarded senses, past all space 
And pealing rhythm of time, ere I be made 
Spirit to apprehend your spirit face; 
Yet of this only is my soul afraid. 



102 YELLOW CLOVER 

That you are merged in some transcendent 
grace. 

If you are merged in some transcendent grace, 
Drowned in divinity, ah, then no more 
We are ourselves, no longer shall implore 
The Power that rushes on its own proud race 
Toward terrible perfection at a pace 
So passionate that we who would adore 
A Father are but bubbles on the roar 
Of that tumultuous tide. If such strange case 
Be ours, if unappealable decree 
Make human love and joy and suffering 
A whirl of autumn leaves, heart's mockery, 
Speak it, O Science, with authentic voice, 
And let us end it now. For who would cling 
To such existence, serve such God, by choice ? 

I choose to serve my hope of God, a hope 
Like to the shipwrecked mariner's, whose frail 
Boat lurches while he leaps to calk and bail. 
Make fast his water-keg with shred of rope, 



IN BOHEMIA 103 

Still searching, searching, dizzy eyes a-grope, 
The blank of ocean for a saving sail. 
Not his the fault if whelming seas prevail; 
What courage can, he does. So would I 

cope 
With our immensity of doubt, with all 
This vast incertitude on which we toss, 
Hoping, and striving in the hope I cherish, 
Till nought remains to solace or appal. 
If hope be truth, 'tis joy. If all be loss, 
What matters it to life brought forth to perish? 

To life brought forth to perish what is 

life? 
Nought recks the field-mouse peeping from a 

loop 
Of grasses that this evening may bring swoop 
Upon him of the owl whose plaintive fife 
We echo for our sport. No dread of knife 
Troubles those sheep that sedulously droop 
Their heads above the clover ; even this group 
Of calves frisk forth to market without strife. 



104 YELLOW CLOVER 

Wild, pirate hawks cry loud above the caw 
Of scandaled citizens, yet hawks and crows 
Alike obey commandments that we call 
Instinct. In joy the flood of being flows, 
Each life the food of higher life, and all 
Creatures of earth, sea, air accept the Law. 



Why may not we in joy accept the Law? 
Is thought a curse that we still chafe in vain, 
One blind link more in an unending chain, 
Against such doom? We see that children 

draw 
Life from their parents; empires, wisps of 

straw 
On a swift stream, swirl by that man mxay gain 
A firmer basis for a nobler reign; 
And yet we would extinction overawe 
With our dim spark of God. Oh, what are we. 
That in the face of all we witness, still 
Clamor and cry for immortality; 
Dare to withhold our puny homage till 



IN BOHEMIA 105 

Some oracle shall tell us if there be 

A Will within the Law, and Love that Will? 



O Will within the Law, O Love the Will, 

To Thee I lift what faltering faith I may, 

Longing allegiance fain its vow to pay 

In Thy vast temple, but of little skill 

To parley with Jehovah. Still, O still 

Let her be my interpreter and pray 

The prayer I cannot; let as yesterday 

Her faith's clear fountain feed my wavering 

rill. 
O yesterday, and all its joy of you! 
Just back from morning run, bright locks 

a-blow 
About flushed face, such gladness gleaming 

through 
Candid gray eyes as deepens them to blue. 
Arms full of blossoming branches fresh with 

dew, 
You come to memory, love's afterglow. 



106 YELLOW CLOVER 

(VII) 

Your sentence by my quavering voice was told. 
Amazed, like the forsaken Christ, you viewed 
The spectral shape of your appointed rood. 
Even as when once autumnal mists unrolled 
And gave you, unsuspecting, to behold 
For the first time the Alps. Stricken you 

stood, 
Awed, terrified at their bleak magnitude, 
And shivered in the sunshine, smitten cold. 
But straight you turned, so gallantly that God 
Was proud of you, from ways you longed to 

wend. 
From all your joy of life to this new goal, 
Resolved to die with honor. Firm of soul, 
Wresting a victory from defeat, you trod 
Your Via Dolorosa to the end. 

Your Via Dolorosa was mine own. 

I walked beside you, far as love might go. 

I saw, while mortal beauty dimmed, the glow 



IN BOHEMIA 107 

Of Spirit brighten, till the soul had flown, 
As birds at some cserulean bidding, known 
Only to wings, fly south before the snow 
To joy of summer. Left behind, below, 
I wait till clouds of time be overblown. 
Yet is there not a Way, a Truth, a Life 
That my dull, darkened heart may reach you 

by? 
Are not these walls, that watched your passing, 

rife 
With mysteries that on me call and gleam? 
Is it no more than pain's importunate dream. 
Or do I sometimes feel your presence nigh? 

Have I not sometimes felt your presence nigh? 
You said : 'T will not leave you comfortless," 
And oft half conscious of a swift impress 
Upon my spirit, lights that clarify 
A problem, calm on storm, ever I try 
To hold my listening heart in readiness 
For joy of your impalpable caress. 
Wisdom of your inaudible reply. 



108 YELLOW CLOVER 

Oh, still shed blessing on me from those wings 
Of whose soft tarriance I would be aware, 
Light intimations, fleet evanishings. 
Speech finer than all syllables, a rare 
Shining within my soul, a thrill intense 
That breaketh not Death's law of reticence. 



It breaketh not Death's law of reticence, 
For when I would my miracles declare 
They melt as sunset colors in the air 
Of evening, and myself oft wonder whence 
Came to my heart that brief intelligence 
Of a communion eyes and ears forswear 
And touch denies. My ebbing joys despair 
And charge imagination with pretense. 
Is this my lonely camp by love patrolled, 
Or am I fooled by credulous desire? 
What hand throws balsam on my bivouac fire 
When it burns low ? Whose is the tender tone 
That hushes grief with courage, as of old : 
"We will be strong and glad in love alone"? 



IN BOHEMIA 109 

"We will be strong and glad in love alone." 
I can endure through all my desolate days, 
But can I share your canticles of praise, 
Your adoration at the Great White Throne 
That rises for the pure in heart ? Can moan 
Mount up to singing? How shall summer raise 
Beauty from these your ashes? Shall the 

maize 
Ripen in gold where willow-herb was sown? 
By seven springs has your far grave been 

grassed, 
And in my depth of sorrow are astir 
New powers, perceptions, joys, against my 

earth 
Uppressing, secret agonies of birth. 
At bidding of their angel gardener : 
"The Life Eternal! Let us hold it fast!" 



"Let us hold fast the Life Eternal!" So 

You bade me, so I strive, a better lover 

Than I shall be a saint. Oh, starspace rover, 



110 YELLOW CLOVER 

Would we might stroll once more, as long ago, 
Startling the bobolinks, across the glow 
Of Wellesley meadows lit by yellow clover 
With "God in all," you murmured, and "God 

over 
All beauty and all joy" ! For as I know 
Your soul enfolding mine, you dwelt in Him, 
Dwelt in the Light of God, How clearly fall 
On memory your words, when once your 

breath 
Waited the ether, and my eyes went dim! 
"Oh, have no fear, Dear Heart, for life and 

death 
Are one," you smiled, "and God is All in All," 



Forevermore is God your All in All. 
In His eternal radiance you dwell, 
Fulfilling His High Word as sunbeams quell 
These earthly shadows. In your dying, gall 
You tasted, felt the spear your flesh appal, 
Were crucified with Christ, but it is well 



IN BOHEMIA 111 

With you at last in that bright citadel 
Pain cannot storm, beyond the shining wall 
Grief may not scale. That terror of all men, 
The gate of gloom, is now your gate of gold. 
Sore-tested, your heroic heart has won 
The pearl of peace. More quietly than when 
Your sentence by my quavering voice was told, 
I give you joy, my Dearest. Death is done. 



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